250-300 Pa. polling places without power

The Corbett administration said that between 250 and 300 polling places in Pennsylvania remained without power Friday, just four days before the presidential election.

State officials would not identify which sites remained without power since superstorm Sandy hit Monday. The bulk of the outages were in the southeast, Lehigh Valley and northeast; others were scattered throughout the state.

Pennsylvania has about 9,300 polling places.

Department of State spokesman Ron Ruman said the number continues to fall as crews work to restore electricity. He said a request by The Associated Press for the list of polling places without power was under consideration. He said officials are concerned that releasing a list might mislead voters.

“There is concern this list is so fluid, and some places have generators [we don’t know all of those by any means] that it may not even be completely accurate,” Ruman said.

Electric utilities have been asked to make polling places a priority after such customers as hospitals and nursing homes.

For those that remain without power on Election Day, county officials can move precincts, use paper ballots, bring in generators or rely on the machines’ batteries for juice. Officials have reported conflicting information about the machines’ battery power, with estimates running from 21/2 to six hours.

In hard-hit New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie has said that military trucks would be converted to makeshift polling places for areas where regular voting spots remain unpowered.